Media owners prosecuted, forced out of Kyrgyzstan

New York, May 13, 2011--The
Committee to Protect Journalists called onKyrgyz authorities today to drop trumped-up criminal charges against the founder
and director of the largest regional television channel, Osh
TV, and the founder, owner, and director of three now-defunct
media outlets--the independent broadcaster Mezon TV, and newspapers Itogi Nedeli and Portfel.

Osh TV's Khalil
Khudaiberdiyev told CPJ that he and Mezon TV's Dzhavlon Mirzakhodzhayev were being charged
with separate counts of organizing and participating in mass disorder; calls
for separatism; incitement to interethnic and religious hatred; abuse of
office; and the illegal creation of an armed group. Both Khudaiberdiyev and
Mirzakhodzhayev deny the charges.

According to the independent regional news website Ferghana News,
prosecutors in Jalal-Abad, southern Kyrgyzstan, announced in late April they had
finished an investigation into a number of alleged crimes reportedly committed
by several ethnic Uzbeks, including Khudaiberdiyev and Mirzakhodzhayev, and
said they had sent the case to the Jalal-Abad City Court. The court was
scheduled to hear the case on Wednesday, but it is unclear whether the hearing
took place, Khudaiberdiyev told CPJ.

According to Khudaiberdiyev, the case against him and
Mirzakhodzhayev stems from their stations' coverage of a May 2010 rally in
Jalal-Abad. Demonstrators had gathered to oppose the return to power of ousted
Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Regional authorities blamed the
coverage for igniting violence.

"We call on Kyrgyz authorities to drop all charges againstKhalil Khudaiberdiyev and Dzhavlon
Mirzakhodzhayev and allow them to return to Kyrgyzstan and resume their
activities as publishers," CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. "President Otunbayeva must make
good on her pledges to support press freedom and ensure that journalists are
not prosecuted in retaliation for their work."

Khudaiberdiyev and Mirzakhodzhayev are being prosecuted in
absentia; they learned of the criminal case against them from the press,
Khudaiberdiyev said. Speaking to journalists in April, Kyrgyzstan President
Roza Otunbayeva said no journalist have been prosecuted in Kyrgyzstan or fled
the country since she came to power in April 2010. "Press freedom is our
republic's asset," Otunbayeva told
journalists.

In an open letter
on Wednesday, Khudaiberdiyev called the charges against him fabricated, and
asked Otunbayeva "not to allow his illegal prosecution."

Mirzakhodzhayev's outlets folded as a result of the June
2010 interethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan. The media owner left the
country for safety concerns. Khudaiberdiyev told CPJ that he was forced to sell
Osh TV in July and leave the country
after he was interrogated
by local security services and received threats from a local mayor. After
changing owners, Osh TV modified its
editorial policy and no longer criticizes regional authorities; it also stopped
producing and broadcasting Uzbek-language programming, according to CPJ sources
in Osh.